Edging up to four months without Jay, I'm coming to realize that every turning of a new month will be a reminder of my path away from our life together. I wonder how long that will last, or if it will last forever.
This has been an excruciating week for me, a week of exquisite and nearly unending pain. The difficulty I was having related to waiting for my medical test results didn't help. I think I'm in more emotional pain now than I was right after Jay died.
I keep waking up each morning to the realization that whatever I do with my life from this moment on, I do it without him. I do it only with the memory of him. That emptiness threatens to suck me in every single day.
Part of the problem is that the time in the clinical trial has nearly overwritten my memories of the good times. And god, did we have good times. But the pain and fear of the trial and of watching Jay slide inexorably toward death is, right now at least, carved more strongly on my heart.
This is one of the reasons for my continued passes through his blog. I want to see who he was before I knew him. I want to see what he said about all our good times. I re-read our early emails for the same reason - to be reminded of the strength of our love and the power of the joy we had in each other.
He was an incredible gift to me, and I don't want to squander that gift.
But I am plodding right now, barely putting one foot in front of the other.
<3
ReplyDeleteYou're doing fine. It doesn't feel fine, oh boyhowdy, it doesn't. But it's completely to be expected. The only way you can make it worse is if you try to hide from it, squelch it, or outrun or distract yourself so much you don't feel it (now). You're doing fine, though. Goddammit it hurts. But that eases, with some time. The really awful crashes come fewer and farther between, and the intensity eases. Be kind to yourself. You so deserve it. *hugs*
ReplyDeleteFor reasons unknown, I am also going through a period of very strong grief right now. There was the bit when he died, then the bit when I went to Worldcon and he didn't. Since that was one of the few times we would spend time physically together, he wasn't really gone in my head until he wasn't there. Then there was this week. It just seems that it is really sinking in that I can't ask his advice or tell him what I'm up to (I still do, of course, but he is less responsive). And I cry. At home. At work. At the market. Now.
ReplyDeleteMuch love to you and solidarity in the pain. Sometimes it's hard to read your comments on making the house your own. We moved him into that house. I decided where the furniture would go, and we went out and bought the brag shelf and the bookcases together (I told him that now that he had a grown-up house, he couldn't use the particlewood bookshelves any more).
I am happy that you are making that space your own. I will miss what it was and the adventures we had there.
You were there for Jay in a manner no one else could have been, and you stayed in your front row seat to all he endured until the bitter end. All of us who knew and loved Jay are eternally grateful to you, and quite a few of us are still here, reading your blog, learning your story, available for hugs should our paths ever cross. We may have met you via Jay, but I think I speak for a lot of us when I say, we're very glad to have met you irrespective of that.
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